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If you appreciate late 90s vintage PCs you might be interested in this one.
I decided to build a Pentium II machine on which I can play my favourite games from those times. Magic Carpet (Bullfrog Productions) is one of them, but it needs a joystick. I had good quality USB joysticks, but those games need old analog gameport-based controllers that are serviced by the sound cards of the time.
This new project acts as a USB Host and provides the analog output that emulates a 4 axis + 4 button game controller.
the prototype works absolutely great, it takes about 0.6ms to read data from the attached USB joystick and to send it to the sound card. data is retrieved every 10ms as per the HID polling interval, absolutely no input command is lost and there is over-current protection built in in order to protect the PC from misuse.
what do you guys think? I'm open to ideas regarding this project before I commit revision 2 of the board - which might end up being a 4 layer design.
prototype pictures: https://photos.app.goo.gl/fXdDBng4dvEepq8V7
repo: https://cadlab.io/projects/lemidi
cheers,
peter

My Lisp interpreter for microcontrollers, uLisp, now supports the MSP430 FR6989 LaunchPad board, with the ability to write text to the LCD display from Lisp programs:
For more information see uLisp for the MSP430 FR6989 LaunchPad.

In case it might be of use to someone, I've posted a Youtube video and created a Github repo dealing with an alternate way of multiplexing 7-segment displays that has a greatly reduced parts count. It's multiplexing by segment instead of by digit. The video shows this method implemented with an MSP430G2553. The Github repo has demonstration Arduino Nano sketches, but they should work as-is with Energia except for the pin assignments. The video is on my local OSH group's channel, and I can't respond to comments there, but will answer questions here if there are any.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w09Zy8MQrc
https://github.com/gbhug5a/7-Segment-Displays-Multiplex-by-Segment

A new WIN32 version of BSL-Scripter.exe has been compiled which allows BSL flashing using generic USB-to-UART adapters such as the FT232, CP2102 and CH430 as the hardware interface. It can be used with MSP430 F5xx F6xx, and FRxx parts with UART BSL.
This version has a new MODE line option "INVOKE", which causes Scripter to directly generate the BSL hardware invocation sequence on the adapter's DTR and RTS outputs, which in turn are connected to the /Reset and Test pins on the target device. It produces the pattern shown in Figure 2 of slau319w.pdf and slau550s.pdf, which is normally generated by the Rocket or MSP-FET. If the INVOKE option is used, you must include the PARITY option as well.
I have successfully tested the new Scripter on an MSP430FR2311 using all three adapter types. It would be helpful if others could test other relevant MSP430 parts and report the results.
This has finally come about as a result of the generous efforts nagaokanchi, also known as "drcrane" on Github, who not only got TI's source code to compile with new versions of all the dependencies, but also navigated the mysteries of BOOST to control the DTR and RTS lines. The new Scripter and a related Instructions file are contained in "BSL-Scripter-v3.4.1.zip" in the Releases folder of his repository, which also contains the source code:
https://github.com/drcrane/bslscripter-vs2017/releases
For those who must run an official TI version of Scripter, I will leave on my Github the now-deprecated kludge option for using these adapters with the official Scripter, but of course it requires either manual intervention or an additional circuit:
https://github.com/gbhug5a/CP2102-with-BSL-Scripter-for-MSP430
And finally, a reminder that the older MSP430 parts which use BSLDEMO2 for flashing, including the F1xx, F2xx, F4xx, and G2xx parts with BSL, can also be flashed with these adapters if a modified version of BSLDEMO is used, such as the "BSLDEMO-2.01C.exe" found in my other repo:
https://github.com/gbhug5a/MSP430-BSL
Texas Instruments has neither reviewed nor approved any of this. But I continue to hope TI will officially make similar changes to BSL-Scripter and BSLDEMO to support the use of these generic adapters.

Hi Ross,
The best solution depends on what you want to achieve.
If you want to build a chartplotter, then OpenPlotter or a standalone setup of OpenCPN would be a viable approach. Both will require a RPI 3 as the GUI of OpenCPN ps
For OpenPlotter, I recommend the 1.0 image and not their latest alpha, unless you know what you're doing.
For standalone OpenCPN, this tutorial worked for me.
If you only want to track ships and may report to a website, then AISHub's rPiAIS is the quickest way to get up and running.
More DIY alternatives are Kplex (which OpenPlotter uses under the hood) or some form of home-brew Python script.
ais-forwarder to send received AIS messages over the network
simpleAIS to decode AIS messages in your Python project
You will find more AIS related projects under my Github stars.
Best Regards,
Adrian

Interesting. I did not know about these modules. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Which module do you have (frequency)? These module are intended to be used as a network processor connected to an MCU. Looking at the user manual there is no serial loader implemented nor a way to update the firmware over the air. With that said, it seems that the modules expose the TCKC, TMSC and RESET line. You should be able to hookup these lines from the LaunchPad's XDS110 if you have one to program it with Energia. Please not that there are pin mappings specific for the LaunchPad that you might want to change.

INTRODUCTION
This guide's intent and purpose is to allow a user with minimal Linux experience to successfully setup an absolutely free development environment to program the STM32F0 microcontroller with full debugging capability.
PREREQUISITES
A Linux distro, I used Linux Mint 13 (Ubuntu works nicely too)
An Internet connection
At least 2gb of spare hard drive space
Familiarity with terminal
A STM32F0 Discovery Board!
PART 1 – Install Codesourcy
PART 2 – Install OpenOCD
PART 3 – Install Eclipse
PART 4 – Setup File Directory
PART 5 – Setup Eclipse
PART 6 – Configure the gdb/OpenOCD
Hope you enjoy! Any questions, comments, feedback, feel free to sound off below.Also a STM32F4 guide is on its way. When it gets here depends on how much spare time I have....
Edit: Thanks bluehash! Guide is now hosted on arm-hq.
v1-2 Downloads
stm32f0_v2.doc

I'm in the US, and I've generally had good results with Banggood. Their products are pretty much the same as you would find on Ebay, but they appear to care about customer service, at least in my experience. The biggest issue for me has been shipping. On two occasions I've paid a higher price to get something from the US warehouse, thinking that shipping would be much faster. But that hasn't worked. The last time I ordered, the items from China arrived before the US items, which took 18 days via DHL. I've become a real non-fan of US domestic DHL. They are much slower than anyone else. I mean, 18 days. There's no excuse for that.
I don't know what shipping and customs problems you will have in Canada. Maybe someone else can advise you on that. But with regard to the products, I would generally feel comfortable with Banggood. Of course it depends on how much you're going to spend.

so lets start simple,
have you tried a different sd card? or tried a different sector? (not all SD cards are equal)
have you made sure the card lock switch is in the correct position? (im sure you have but just want to make sure.)
are you able or do you know how to use "dd" to see if you actually have written to the sd card? (dd is a command to either write or read raw data from a disk or image.) we want to verify that you are actually writing to the sd card
The code looks good, but i dont use RTOS, and dont have a way to test at this time, im sure i could but I dont have time to get it wall setup.

Hi sara,
I can only give you limited support, and hopefully point you in the right direction.........
Your HW does have SPI, so you should be able to write to SD cards with out issue.
Try looking here
the only thing I see is you have to change the code to fit your HW, I do not know if SSI is close to USCI or USI.
also if you add more info on your setup we maybe able to guide you in the right direction as well.

not json but instructions given for linux
https://github.com/RickKimball/tivac-core
Assumes you have openocd and arm-none-eabi-gcc in your path. Probably won't work for windows. Probably will work for OSX.

Hi All,
I just finished assembling and modifying this kit for my SO for Christmas. I put it in a vintage toaster from 1910. Works great and so cool! However, watch out for shorting anything while the clock is powered - I fried some transistors while playing around with it.
In any case, I made quite a few modifications and will post them here. I added the following components to the kit:
Arduino UNO I had lying around.
Random photodiode I had lying around.
Adafruit RTC module: https://www.adafruit.com/product/3013
Adafruit motion sensor: https://www.adafruit.com/product/189
I modified the code to use the photodiode and motion sensor to control the brightness of the display using PWM. I have attached that. It is not written with extreme discipline, but it works
Let me know what you guys think,
Saul
main_v6.ino
nixie.h

This board is indeed obsoleted. It was replaced by the RED board many years ago. The TI-RTOS version it was based on no longer receives updates. Hence, it was time to retire this.
If you still like access to this board then do the following:
Open Energia's preferences (File->Preferences or on macOS Energia->Preferences)
Located "Additional Boards Manager URLs" and paste the following link into that field: https://energia.nu/packages/package_msp432_black_index.json
Go to the board manager and you should see the black board appear again.
Good luck with your Robot project.
Robert

Hello everyone,
There is a couple of similar projects available on the internet. Some of them base on Arduino and PIC performs very basic mount control without math intensive computation implemented in embedded controller. I decided to build my own with the following goals:
ease of use by an inexperienced amateur astronomer (full automatic operation)
precision and resolution of position
last but not least: the price
Final, or better say at the moment, design comprises of the following components:
Stellaris LM4F launchpad central control unit,
two ULN2003 unipolar stepper motor driver chips,
two 28byj-48 stepper motors one moving in azimuth, and in elevation via gear train,
communication module: Bluetooth serial module. It allows sending a coordinate set-point and provides position feedback to Stellarium,
GPS module providing position and precise time reference - PPS gives 1us accuracy,
Nokia 5110 display unit and joystick for standalone operation,
now obsolete mouse (PS/2) modified to provide independent (incremental) position information
Resolution that was reached is a single step of approx. 5". Given the size of Jupiter to range from 30" to 50", this positioning resolution makes the view comfortably stable in standard 60° FOV eyepiece at reasonably high magnification, without the need to adjust AZ/ALT continuously.
During the development I made use of several opensource and projects available online, namely:
AccelStepper for stepper control,
TinyGPS++ for NMEA decoding,
Arduino telescope controller was my inspiration and reference for Taki's matrix method for coordinates transformation,
of course Energia as my IDE
Upon power-up the mount is performing:
homing
acquisition of current location (longitude/latitude) and time via NMEA stream
moves to 3 brightest (most convenient) stars in succession to perform 3 star alignment procedure - they are selected from the list of over 500 stars in built-in catalog (the brightest are used for the alignment, tough),
once aligned the mount is in tracking mode: it tracks the view to counter the apparent movement of objects in the sky,
waiting, either for the user to move to particular object - selected from the library of stars and Messier objects, or
awaits connection via Bluetooth from a PC running Stellarium with a plugin and slews to selected object.
search for the object that should be visible in the eyepiece and display important information on LCD - I compiled in 500 brightest stars from HYGXYZ and full Messier catalog.
I have very little experience as amateur astronomer so far, so some of the objectives might have been not very obvious for me in the beginning. This project was also a good way to make use of my free time and gain experience in embedded system design.
With kind regards,
Szymon

The radio on its own does not much. It needs an MCU to control it and talk to the computer, which is the MSP430 Launchpad in this case. See the first post of this thread and just replace the custom breakout board with the Ebay radio (minus the changes in wiring as documented).
There are several options to program the LaunchPad. For this project I used TI's full IDE Code Composer Studio (CCS).
http://www.ti.com/ww/en/launchpad/software.html
The repository I published on Github includes the CCS project file.
https://github.com/astuder/dAISy
Simply copy the whole tree into your CCS workspace and open it in CCS. From there you can compile the code and program the LaunchPad.
The radio configuration data generated by WDS is in the radio_config.h source file.
dAISy USB is the standalone version of all this, where I designed and built my own PCB that includes radio and MCU on one board.

Good news for everyone having difficulties sourcing the Si4362 radio IC.
I verified that the transceiver Si4463 works with dAISy. This probably also applies to Si4460 and Si4461. Besides being more widely available through distributors, more adventurous souls can even find these ICs on Aliexpress.
Even better news for those that want to recreate my project with minimal effort: Si446x based radio modules are sold on eBay and elsewhere.
I bought the E10-M4463D from eBay for $7.99:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/100mw-433MHz-SI4463-Wireless-Transceiver-Module-With-Antenna-2100m-/151243201316
I chose this module over others because all pins of the radio are broken out to headers.
Unfortunately two pins (GPIO2 and GPIO3) are reserved to control the RF switch that connects the antenna with RX or TX channels. But after a few minor changes to my code I had dAISy working.
Here's the branch on Github: https://github.com/astuder/dAISy/tree/E10-M4463D
The wiring changed:
GPIO0 -> P2.0
NIRQ -> P2.5
GPIO2, GPIO3 -> no longer connected to the LaunchPad
As the modules are built for 433 MHz and AIS is using 162 MHz, I had to replace antenna and passives on the RX side.
The new passives from left to right are (ignoring the obvious 0-ohm resistors) 11pF, 150nH, 13pF. As you can see the 0603 components are a very tight fit. I reflowed them with a hot air station instead of using a soldering iron. The clunky thing on the right is a BNC connector, SMA probably would have been a more elegant fit
Technically, it's still not ideal. The traces might be impedance matched to the original frequency. However a quick real-world test demonstrated similar sensitivity as my original breakout boards.
EDIT: added wiring information
EDIT: added link to Github